People spend a long time deliberating about their cruising dinghy for a host of different reasons, and many will come to different conclusions when they choose. No-one is right or wrong. The best dinghy is the one that suits the crew and helps them enjoy cruising safely in the waters they want to explore.

Anne grew up racing dinghies on West London reservoirs. Starting in a Mirror then progressing to Fireflies and eventually a Laser, she enjoyed the thrills and spills around the cans. Later, she found herself working at Calshot and became aware of the Wayfarer for both teaching and cruising, spending her first nights aboard, having missed the tide to get home!

Dennis grew up in Coventry, the centre of England and as far removed from the sea as possible. Having misspent his youth climbing mountains, at a much later date he was coerced into a Wayfarer, Bosun and GP 14 at an East London reservoir, reluctantly experiencing adult education afloat.

Later still, our paths having crossed, we looked for a boat to explore the waters around the River Blackwater in Essex. We both knew the Wayfarer, but thought it was too heavy to manoeuvre from the water to the dinghy park at Tollesbury. In the end, we found a Leader which was fun to sail and easy to manage.

As our experience grew a little, we decided that we should like to try sleeping aboard, but our particular Leader had no floorboards and little stowage available. We had discovered the Wanderer at the Crystal Palace dinghy exhibition, and this seemed ideal for our purpose. It was almost the same size as the Leader, easy to manage on land and still fun to sail. On our first outing, we discovered that we could recover from a capsize without too much difficulty. It had a tent, plenty of stowage space and could carry an outboard on the transom.

Many happy years of Wandering followed. We learned a great deal about dinghy cruising and sailing, not least by joining the DCA. We enjoyed Christmas on the Broads, summer in Ireland and Whitsun in Scotland. It was on this latter trip, where we experienced much bigger seas around Mull, that we began to consider the Wayfarer once more. After much soul-searching, we decided to exchange the Wanderer for Emma, a Mark I wooden Wayfarer. We are satisfied that it was the right decision for us, having now had five very enjoyable seasons cruising with her.

Emma is a larger, heavier boat and therefore more difficult to recover and manage ashore. However, at sea she is much more stable and forgiving than the Wanderer. She sails well, and can make good speed. The GPS recorded 8/9 knots with the tide sailing up the Thames to Tower Bridge last Easter. We can join in low key friendly racing at our club. Indeed, many Wayfarer owners, especially in Denmark and Holland are both keen racers and cruisers, choosing their boats for this reason.

In light airs, she is harder to get going than a smaller boat, but much more easy to sail in strong winds. On a crossing back from Calais to Ramsgate, we ran under jib alone past the Goodwins in a rolling sea with winds gusting force 5/6. Emma performed very well, happily surfing down the waves. Crossing the Kattegat to Sweden last summer, we sailed on a broad reach under just a reefed main. Once again, she coped with rolling seas and gusty winds extremely well. Good sailors can coax more speed than us from their Wayfarers in very light airs, but we get there eventually. In 2001, we rowed nearly all the way from Rhum to Skye, about 12 miles at 2 knots, and wondered why we no longer carry an engine?

Being less flexible than we were fifteen years ago, the extra room for camping is a bonus. However, the extra stowage space available in the Mark I is all too easily filled! We practise capsize recovery at the start of most seasons, but have never needed to use this skill on a cruise. To reduce sail quickly, we have two lines of slab reefing in the main. Until last season, we carried a jib and genoa aboard, but experimented with a reefing foresail last summer. This met with mixed success. She is not a dry boat when beating into a big sea. We use both a pump and self bailers to empty the water. A spray dodger helps to keep out some of the breaking waves. However, we keep the tent in a waterproof bag under the thwart, and can have it erected a few minutes after anchoring. It never takes long with a sponge and leather to get the boat dry enough to live in.

We enjoy sailing the Wayfarer. It is reasonably fast and fun to sail, yet reassuringly stable and forgiving. We know she can cope in rough seas and we can row through the calms. We are happy that we can live comfortably aboard inside our tent and carry enough provisions for a longer cruise. Above all, Emma has been very reliable and suits us for our dinghy cruising.